Village Community Hall, Tunbridge Wells, 6 June 2026 – part 2

11 Jun 2026

Following my opening two hours with Tunbridge Wells Life Drawing – our ‘part one‘ from midday to 2pm, with poses inspired by the works of Antony Gormley – I had an interval of thirty minutes in which to mingle, snack and reset. Then: part two…

Our ‘long pose’ session was from 2:30pm to 4:30pm. Two warm-up poses (5 minutes each, both standing) would get us started, after which I was to sit for a single pose of 90 minutes, undertaken in two 45-minute instalments.

During part one I’d posed very much ‘in the round’, but for our long pose we changed the space so I faced an arc of artists at tables or upon cushions on the floor. Just one or two lurked beyond my peripheral vision, extending the arc to perhaps 270°.

It was a great sight; a broad two-tiered arc represents a bumper attendance of artists. Many had stayed on from the first session whilst others had arrived especially for this one. Certainly it was the biggest crowd I’d ever seen here for a long pose.

Organiser Ben called timing updates every fifteen minutes. Sometimes I ploughed on with unwavering stoicism; at other times I seized the moment to shake-out numbness that insidiously seeped through my left hand. Aside from that, I was in good shape.

And so is life drawing in Tunbridge Wells. On the surface, this town’s socioeconomic characteristics scream fertile ground for the arts; but artistic communities don’t simply happen. They take time and effort and courage to build. Here they are flourishing.